The Heart's Memory
by Janie-ohio
Summary: Nine-year-old Lily Luna Potter is the last child at home and is the last child to ask Harry the dreaded questions about his childhood. She's always been an exceptional child, so of course, this wouldn't go as easily as it had with her brothers. Epilogue Compliant, Harry/Ginny


**A/N:** Hi all, I've joined the International Wizarding School Championship writing competition, and this story is my first entry. All necessary competition information is in an endnote.

To readers of my Harry/Draco series, those stories will continue to be listed in my profile to prevent confusion. In the meantime, I hope you don't mind a little Harry/Ginny goodness! :)

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**The Heart's Memory**

_"The heart, like the mind, has a memory. And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes."_

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Harry sat back on the well-loved sofa in their family sitting room and heaved a huge sigh. He looked at Ginny sitting next to him and gave her an exhausted smile. "Well, two down, one to go. Think we can convince Minerva to start accepting them at age ten?"

She gave him a playful slap on the leg. "Don't joke about that. We only have two years left with our baby, Harry, before she's gone too." She scooted closer to him and pulled his arm around her. "She's got to be feeling a little lost tonight. I remember that year alone before I left for Hogwarts was incredibly lonely. I could only think of all the fun Ron was having without me."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, fun with trolls, cerberi, evil wizards, baby dragons—"

"Oh shut up. You loved every minute of it."

"Well, not every minute, but yeah, I loved it. But Gin, she's not alone like you were. She got to spend the rest of the day with Hugo, and they barely noticed their siblings were gone."

"Oh, she noticed, but I think she was worried about Hugo and trying to distract him. She's got such a big heart, always worried about everyone else, but it's there. Trust me."

"I always trust you." He gave her a little nuzzle. "Hey, you want a glass of wine? She's already out, and it's only half-past nine. With no teenagers around, we could have a little grown-up playtime, what d'ya think?"

Ginny laughed. "I think that could be arranged. Go on and close up the house. I'll get the wine and meet you upstairs."

Harry leered as they stood up. "Mm-hmm. I'm looking forward to it."

"You lech. Go on," she answered as she pushed him away, then she smacked his arse on her way to the kitchen. Merlin, he loved that woman.

He looked around and gathered up the jumper and shoes Lily had left by the door when they came home that night from Ron and Hermione's. She'd been practically asleep and had let him carry her up to her bed, her head resting on his shoulder. His baby. He might joke about her going off to Hogwarts, but he was so grateful to have two more years with her at home.

He locked up the doors and did a mental check of the wards as he did every night. His family's safety was always on his mind, and it was something he didn't ever forget. He wouldn't admit it, but sometimes he woke in the middle of the night and felt the need to recheck everything. A tour of the house, a magical feel of the wards, a glance at the children in their beds, and then he could relax and go back to sleep. Ginny knew, of course, as she'd sometimes embrace him on his return, but she never said anything. She understood.

He heard Ginny moving around in the kitchen still and headed up the stairs to check everything there. He glanced around James's room and shook his head at the mess of clothes, books, papers, food wrappers, and just general debris. That boy... strike that. That young man, as the word boy didn't seem to fit the adolescent anymore, could leave a trail of chaos and destruction behind him wherever he went. Harry chuckled and closed the door, hoping to contain the smell of teenage boy. He was tempted to just put a stasis spell on it to prevent insects until James returned from Hogwarts at Christmas, but knew he and Ginny would likely just clean it.

Albus's room next door was the opposite of his older brother's. It was overall neat and tidy, but it was beginning to take on a layer of adolescence over the core of childhood underneath. He still had posters of his favourite comic book characters, but now Al had taped up enlarged photographs of him and his cousins playing quidditch and just generally having fun.

Harry smiled, walking to close the open window when a flash of lightning cut through the sky. He waited for it, then *BANG*. The house vibrated with the force of the thunder, and he held his breath.

"Daddy!"

"Shit," he muttered. There went part of his grown-up time with Ginny. Lily was terrified of storms and would likely be awake until it passed.

"Coming, Lils."

He crossed the hall to her room and stopped for just a moment, flashes of memories entering his mind from countless similar instances through the years. The memories nearly overwhelmed him, seeming to overlay his vision of the present. A crib in the corner where her double-sized bed now sat. A toddler playing with a dollhouse that had long ago been moved to the attic, now replaced with a bookshelf and beanbag chair. It was almost a flickering of time, toggling back and forth in his vision, and through it all was the same voice calling to him.

"Daddy? I'm scared."

He pulled himself back to the present and looked at his daughter, again hit with the layers of memories. Auburn baby curls and a long fiery ponytail, porcelain clear skin and sun-kissed freckles, round baby cheeks and a thinned pre-adolescent profile.

"Dad? Are you okay?"

Disoriented, he sat down on the edge of her bed so that he didn't fall, then another round of lightning tore through the sky and she squealed, throwing herself into his arms. That finally seemed to anchor his mind in the present. Lily, in his arms. Her smell like the baby he once held, but her form the child he now knew. "It's okay, honey. I'm here. You're allowed to be scared in the storm. It's only natural."

She sniffled. "Were you scared of storms when you were a kid?"

He held her head under his chin and nodded. "Yeah, I was. I'd listen to the thunder and wonder how far away the lightning might be. I'd think about the people and animals that might be out in it and worry."

"Since Grandma and Grandpa Potter weren't there, who held you?"

He struggled to look for an answer appropriate for a nine-year-old at bedtime, not wanting to get into a huge story he wasn't sure either of them was ready for. "I usually just snuggled into my bed and held my pillow, love."

She got quiet and they both listened to the wind and rain outside the window. He thought she might be falling asleep, then she broke the silence.

"Dad, when are you going to tell me all the stuff about when you were a baby and a kid? You've told the boys, and I'm not a baby anymore. Hugo and I were talking today about going to Hogwarts, and he said how Uncle Ron and Mum were there when you arrived to get on the train when you were eleven, and that's how you met them because no one was there to show you how to get through the barrier. I don't like that Hugo and my cousins know more about when you were a kid than I do."

Harry felt a lump in his throat. "Lils, baby, there's not that much to tell. You know most of it. Grandma and Grandpa Potter died when I was a baby and Cousin Dudley's parents took me in until I went to Hogwarts."

She pulled back and looked at him with her young version of Ginny's eyes, eyes that could always hit straight to the core, no matter their source. "Dad, you always get so sad, though. Everyone says I'll know more when I'm older, but I'm older and I still don't know. If I don't know why then I can't help you when you get sad."

He thought about what she said and realized he had told the boys about his parents' history, about his childhood when they had been about this age. She was his baby, so it seemed too soon, but she wouldn't let this go. He looked out at the storm that didn't show any sign of stopping yet and guessed this was as good of a time as any.

"Alright, sit back. Let's get comfortable. If you have questions, just stop me. I can't promise to answer them, but I won't lie, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." She leaned her back against his chest and pulled her knees up to her chest. He wrapped his arm around his youngest and tried to think about where to begin.

"When I was a baby, my parents were already fighting against Voldemort."

"He was around even back then? You beat him when you were all grown up, though."

"I was only seventeen, Lils. That's hardly grown-up. Anyway, yes, he was around back then, and he wanted to get to my family because he was afraid that the Potters might be able to stop him."

"He was right, Dad. You did stop him."

"Yeah, he was right. But back then, I was only a baby. I wasn't even two yet. To protect us, my dad and his friends worked on hiding us using magic. The only way for Voldemort to find us would have been if the person who knew the secret of where we were, told him."

Lily was smart, and she jumped ahead of him. "And they did? How could they do that?"

"Sometimes, people do bad things because they are afraid. They might not be bad people, but they make bad decisions that hurt others just the same. This friend told Voldemort where we were, and he found us. He killed my dad and then my mum, but she put special magic on me when she died so that he couldn't kill me. It hurt him instead, and he didn't come back until I was older."

"Your mum died while saving you?" He could see tears falling down her young face. "Dad, I don't ever want you or Mum to die saving me. I would not be okay with that."

He could practically feel the emotions pouring off the small girl and hugged her closer. "Lily, that's a parent's job. I know how you feel, though. I never wanted that either, but now, as a parent, I finally understand. I would give anything to save you or your brothers. If my parents hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here now, with you. I wouldn't have you and your brothers and your beautiful mother. My parents loved me, but more than that, they loved the idea of you, that I'd have you someday."

She sniffled and snuggled into his chest even closer. "So then what happened?"

He cleared his throat. "Well, I didn't have any family left in the wizarding world. There had been a war and a lot of people had died. Even my grandparents had passed away, and it was just me. So someone took me to my mother's sister, Aunt Petunia."

"And she took care of you while you grew up?"

He hesitated, knowing that this was going to be the hardest part of the conversation, but was at the heart of her original questions. "Kind of. My aunt was not the same as my mum. She and my uncle didn't have magic, and they were afraid of it, and in my aunt's case, also a bit jealous. So when they saw me do accidental magic, and I did it somewhat regularly, they tried to keep me away from them and my cousin as much as they could."

"But you were a little kid!"

"I didn't say it was right, Lils. They did not treat me well, and there were times that, yes, I was alone and afraid by myself in my little room and I didn't have anyone to hold me. But all that did was make me that much more determined to never be that kind of person myself. That's why I'm always here to hold you, maybe sometimes too much."

She sat in silence, but he could tell she was thinking and he waited until she was ready to ask whatever was on her mind. Finally, she opened her mouth, then closed it again. She hugged her knees a little harder then asked her question. "Dad." Silence again. "Dad, did they ever hurt you?"

His heart beat faster, and his chest tightened. This was not something the boys had ever asked. They had always been focused on what had happened when he got to Hogwarts and kind of breezed past his time at the Dursleys'. He should have known his Lily wouldn't have been so easy, but he had promised he wouldn't lie.

"It's not something I particularly like to talk about, baby, but yeah, sometimes they hurt me. I don't want to talk about specifics, okay?" She nodded. "They didn't take good care of me, and sometimes they hurt me." He needed to move on, this was too hard. "But then, when I was eleven, a huge giant of a man came to rescue me and told me I was a wizard."

She knew most of this part and giggled. "And Hagrid gave Cousin Dudley a pigtail, a real one."

"Exactly."

"So how did you get to Hogwarts if your aunt didn't like magic?"

"They didn't have much choice, so they dropped me off at the train station and left me to figure it out myself. But then the best thing ever happened, and I saw a big crowd of ginger kids with trunks."

"And you saw Mum and Uncle Ron?"

"I did. Actually, I heard your Grandmum first, and that was that. I was practically an official Weasley already."

She laughed, and they both listened to the thunder, now far off into the distance. "Thank you, Daddy. I think I can sleep now." She turned and got onto her knees. "Do you need a hug?"

He smiled, so in love with this child and the young woman she was becoming, no longer his baby in that crib. His eyes teared and he nodded, relishing the feel of her arms around his neck, not trying to pull away as was so often the case anymore.

He let go and stood up, tucking her in with her bear snuggled under her arm. One more time he saw that baby in the crib with the same bear, then he leaned down to kiss her brow. "Good night, baby girl. Sweet dreams. I love you."

"Night, Dad. Sweet dreams. I love you, too."

He quietly left the room and closed the door, then just stood in the hall, staring at nothing. A pair of arms enveloped him from behind, and he could feel Ginny kiss his shoulder blade.

"Are you okay?"

"Did you hear all that?"

"Yeah, most of it. What do you need?"

He turned to her and looked at his wife of more than fifteen years. She was barefoot with an old pair of cotton shorts and one of his old Puddlemere shirts, her hair in a knot on top of her head. She took his breath away. He smiled and took her hand.

"You. I need you. Come with me to bed, Gin."

"You got it." She smiled and walked towards their bedroom, leaving him to turn off the light in the hall.

He did a final mental check on the wards and glanced at his daughter's door, taking a moment to tuck their conversation away into his cherished memories so that he might one day see her as she was tonight overlayed by the face of the young woman she would become.

"Thanks, Mum," he murmured, then followed his wife to bed.

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Story Title/Link: The Heart's Memory

School and Theme: Beauxbatons, Godric's Hollow

Special Rule: Write a pairing you have never written before: Harry and Ginny

Main Prompt: Lily Luna Potter

Additional Prompts: Thunderstorms, "Don't let yesterday take up too much of today."

Year: 6

Wordcount: 2,629


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